1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to printers that have embedded functionality for printing time-based media, and in particular to a user interface for operating a printer that prints time-based media resulting in a combination of a printed output and a related electronic data output.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventional printers receive documents in a variety of formats and print the contents of the documents in accordance with a proper format. For example, a printer enabled to print Portable Document Format (PDF) documents will correctly recreate the original appearance of the document, regardless of the platform being used to view the document.
Today, as more databases and computer networks are interconnected, people often have multiple data systems and destinations in which to store information. For example, a person may receive an email containing information that he wants to retain. The person may want to print some or all of the information. The person may further want to add the information to a database or to send the information to other people or destinations or to add the information to a web page. Currently, the person will need to execute several different software programs and will need to type multiple commands into the programs. He may also need to re-enter the information into one or more programs. This is not efficient and is prone to human error, since human beings occasionally forget to perform one of more of the tasks usually associated with a received document and are also prone to making typographical errors.
Some conventional printers incorporate a management function in which the printer monitors its own internal functions and displays an alert if, for example, its toner is low or it is out of paper. This action is based on the printer doing “self-monitoring,” not on any monitoring of the documents to be printed.
While conventional printers can print documents in a wide variety of formats, these printers are fundamentally limited in their ability to reproduce different kinds of media. For example, it is standard technology for a printer to produce images of static text, pictures, or a combination of the two. But because these printers print onto paper or another similar fixed medium, they cannot record the nuances of time-based media very well.
In developing a printer that is equipped to print time-based media without the limitations of conventional printers, a user interface for such a printer is needed. It is further desirable that such a user interface be operable with a printer that performs at least some of the necessary processing itself rather than require an attached computer or other device to perform all of the processing.